


Speed Trials

by Rei Kinneas (beatperfume)



Category: Veronica Mars (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-03-21
Updated: 2010-03-21
Packaged: 2017-10-08 05:05:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,832
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/72989
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beatperfume/pseuds/Rei%20Kinneas
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I'm running speed trials standing in place.</p><p>(Spoilers for 1x22, Leave It to Beaver)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Speed Trials

**Author's Note:**

> Many thanks to devilduckieee for cheerleading and beta. Title and summary from Elliott Smith.

On the sixth day of his father's trial Logan pulls into the parking lot of The Camelot Motel and sees a very familiar LeBaron convertible. Veronica Mars is sitting in the driver's seat, still and staring at nothing. Logan is opening the passenger door before he realizes he's decided to acknowledge her. Time does that these days. Gets away from him. He pauses with the door open, but he figures in for a penny, in for a pound and all that. He sits down and closes the door and Veronica still hasn't moved.

It was her first day of testimony today. She probably can't even see her apartment for all of the press camped outside of it. He should know, since it's the same at his house. He's been staying here since the trial started. The only people who know that are Trina and Duncan. Logan allows himself to wonder why she is here.

"This motel changed my life," she says. She still hasn't looked at him.

He doesn't know what to say to that so he doesn't say anything. He stares straight ahead at the indiscriminate brown stain on the wall next to room 10. She speaks again after a long time.

"Jake Kane and my mother were having an affair, you know."

Logan blinks. No, he didn't know.

"They were?" The words come out unbidden. They sound like his first in days.

"Yeah. They used to meet here. I caught them once, but I didn't know it was her until later."

Logan doesn't know what to do with this information, so he doesn't do anything. He takes a cue from Veronica and doesn't do anything but sit.

The sun has moved when he pays attention next. Time is getting away from him again. He gets out and goes to his room. He can hear Veronica dive off behind him.

*******

Thank God for Wallace. Veronica is glad she had the good sense to rescue him.

It's getting easier to tell him things since that first time. He never asks, so it's easy to lay in the grass of his backyard and say,

"I saw Logan today."

Wallace saw him too, in the court room, but he knows that isn't what she means.

"Where?" He's laying in the grass too, his head near hers and his hands laced over his stomach.

"At the Camelot Motel." Veronica loves Wallace for the things he doesn't say. He doesn't say _What were you doing there?_ He doesn't say _How did that make you feel?_ or _Are you okay?_ Instead he asks,

"What did you say?"

She shrugs and feels the grass tickle her bare shoulders.

"Nothing much."

A few minutes later Darrell tells them dinner's ready. Veronica is really grateful Alicia is letting her stay here during the trial. Every day her dad goes home and deals with the press. Every day she goes to Wallace's and deals with Alicia cooking and Wallace being understanding.

She wonders what Logan deals with at the Camelot every day and then makes herself stop wondering.

*******

Ironically, Duncan seems to be the only one getting any better now that Lilly's real killer has been found. He comes to the Camelot to play XBox on the eighth day of the trial. Earlier, Veronica sat in the parking lot and looked at her steering wheel for two hours. Logan watched her from his window. Her cross examination started today.

"How's Veronica?" he asks Duncan without taking his eyes off the screen. Duncan is so surprised he drops his controller and Logan beheads his character with a quick X-A-Y combo. Whether he's surprised that Logan asked about Veronica or that he spoke at all is unclear. And Logan doesn't care.

"I don't know."

Logan looks at Duncan now because he doesn't believe him and he needs to be looking at him to give him his _I Don't Believe You_ look.

"She won't talk to me."

Logan looks at Duncan until he elaborates.

"I think she's mad at me."

"You think?" Logan continues to not believe Duncan because when Veronica Mars is mad at you, you know it.

"Yeah she's ... I think she's doing what you're doing."

"Which is?"

"She's just ... shut down. Like she couldn't deal so she stopped feeling anything."

Oh. That.

Logan doesn't care. He's just mildly curious as to why she sits in his parking lot a couple hours a day. Logan does not care. He picks up his controller and doesn't say anything for the rest of the night.

*******

Sometimes Veronica just wants to punch someone. Usually this someone is Aaron Echolls or her mother, but these are the two people the most unavailable to her, so she goes to the Camelot Motel and doesn't think, instead.

After a while Logan comes out of his room and joins her. She doesn't look at him. She wants to. That's why she doesn't. the sun is starting to set, but it's still hot. She's sweating beneath her court clothes. She doesn't care. Alicia will start to worry if she doesn't get back soon and she does care about that.

But she can't leave yet. She can't leave and can't look at him, and she's stuck between the two and can't move.

Logan shifts in his seat, sliding down and spreading his legs slightly. She catches it out of the corner of her eye. It makes her aware of his body and the space between in and hers. Then she remembers that she came here to not think, and resolves to do that.

The sun sinks lower. She wipes sweat from her upper lip. She wonders if he's looking at her.

******

Trina calls every night just to make sure he's not dead. Logan doesn't know why she bothers; she sees him every day in court. But, he supposes, now that she's his legal guardian, it would be bad press if something happened to him.

It's such a fucking joke. He counts the days until his 18th birthday.

Tonight Trina starts talking about Dad's defense strategy. She does this sometimes; tries to get him involved in getting their father off easy. Logan is not interested.

Today was the 11th day of the trial. Veronica is still being cross examined. He's been careful not to pay attention, but even he has noticed that it's taking its toll. She wasn't in the parking lot today.

"Bye Trina," he says, and hangs up.

The Camelot has basic cable and one channel of HBO. Logan keeps the TV tuned there to avoid all the news about the trial. He wishes he had booze. He can't go out to get it himself without getting mobbed by the press, and Duncan won't bring him any since he heard about the whole bridge incident.

He strips off his clothing and gets under the covers even though it's still early. He leaves the TV on when he goes to sleep to block out the silence.

******

Veronica's Dad calls after dinner just to see how she is. The longer the cross examination goes on, the more everyone tiptoes around her, like if they speak too loudly or harshly to her she'll break, or blow up, or go on a killing spree of her own. Whatever. She tries to reassure her dad, but she doesn't think he believes her.

"Are they still mobbing the place?" she asks.

"More than ever. You'd think that after a few weeks of 'no comment' they'd get the idea."

"Yeah."

She watches Wallace play video games with Darrell, and Alicia do work at her desk. Pretty soon this could be her family. It seems kinda nice. She knows that Alicia is drinking water because she watched her pour it from the tap. But thinking about this would require her to think about her mother, so she shoves it to the back of her mind until she can deal with it.

"Veronica?"

"What?"

"I said, if it's alright with Alicia I'm going to bring Backup over there. He's pretty miserable, stuck here with the reporters. What do you think?"

"That'd be great, Dad."

Alicia smiles and thanks her when she hands her the phone. Veronica's seen her give Wallace the same look when he dries dishes or folds laundry with her.

Veronica smiles back.

******

He promises himself he isn't going to do it again. He doesn't know why he did it in the first place. But when he sees Veronica's car in the parking lot on the day her cross examination ends, he finds himself walking out of his room before he can convince himself not to.

He takes a good look at her when he gets in the car without quite meaning to. Her nose and cheeks are stained bright red and it's a minute before he realizes it's sunburn. She probably never thought to put on sunblock before going to sit in a parking lot. He forces himself to look away. Not his responsibility.

He looks at the stain on the wall next to room 10. He's pretty sure it's growing.

"Are you mad at Duncan?" he blurts it out and regrets it immediately. She turns to look at him in surprise and for the first time in months he's looking Veronica Mars in the eye. She looks away first, her gaze sliding back to the windshield. He looks at his feet.

"Yes."

He doesn't say anything, but he must look surprised. She must be looking at him to be able to tell.

"He should have told me, when he broke up with me."

"Told you what?"

"That I might be his sister."

He isn't even going to touch that one. All he can think is: at this point he shouldn't be surprised, and, _so that explains Duncan's attitude after Shelly Pomeroy's party_.

He hears her shift in her seat and when he looks up, she's looking straight at him. Intentionally.

"Are you mad at Lilly?"

He wants to look away. He doesn't.

"Yes."

******

He hears her car drive into the lot on a Saturday afternoon, which has never happened before. He doesn't even bother to wonder how he knows her car just by the sound. He thinks about waiting to go out to join her, but what's the point? He knows he's going to do it anyway.

They sit in silence, like normal. Then she starts to talk.

"I thought that when I found Lilly's killer, everything would be okay. I know it sounds really stupid, but that's what I thought." She's stopped avoiding his eyes, and she's looking at him right now. "And when I said this motel changed my life, I didn't just mean my mom and Jake Kane. I meant you too."

They go back to silence. The sun is starting to set. The stain by room 10 is still there. Yesterday was the twentieth day of his father's trial and he's sitting in a car with Veronica Mars.

He looks at her and says, "Do you want to come in?"

"Sure."


End file.
